We Are One In Christ

I want to close our summer of messages on Life Together from Philippians and Philemon by asking the same question Pastor Albert asks of me almost every week on Tuesday afternoons when we meet to talk about the week’s sermon, “What is the take home?”  What should be different about people’s lives and about our church because we have met together with God and heard his Word?

            When I think of a whole summer of messages about our church being a place where people who have found mercy and hope through faith in Jesus do life together, I think that my prayer is that we all individually and we as a church whole will see some of God’s beautifying work actually happening in our lives.

Do you remember in my sermon about our 7^th article of the statement of faith -- that I said the church is God’s masterpiece of art? That’s the very word that is used in Ephesians 2:9 – we are God’s art masterpiece.  But, the raw material (us) God starts with as he does his beautiful work is raw and sometimes ugly stuff.  He starts with people who know and confess that we have sinned and need forgiveness and remaking.  How will God get us from where we were (dead to him and trapped in sin) to where God promises we will be, i.e., a masterpiece – people fully conformed to the image of Christ?  I pointed out in that sermon that God’s work is going to have to be what many contemporary artists call reclamation art.  Reclamation art seeks to repair damaged parts of nature in ways that things deemed as ugly or decayed somehow become beautiful and meaningful.

Let me show you once again one of the most interesting reclamation art projects now underway is the Nine Mile Run project out of Carnegie Mellon University initiated by artists Bob Bingham, Tim Collins and Reiko Goto. The 230-acre Nine Mile Run site in Pittsburgh is a "brownfield," a dumping ground for slag from surrounding steel mills. A river runs through it, choked with pollution from municipal waste. Working with an interdisciplinary team, the artists saw in Nine Mile Run an opportunity for reclaiming beauty.

Their project -- still in process--treats the site not as a hopeless brownfield to be abandoned and avoided, but as a complex ecosystem with enormous potential for beauty. The artists began by envisioning what the site might become.  They asked colleagues on faculty in the science department to join them and they asked: What living organisms exist here now? What everyone considered as being dead when, examined carefully by the artists and scientists, revealed over 144 species of plant life alone! The considered how the life they discovered related to one another and to other living things? Which plants attract butterflies, for instance? How can the soil be reclaimed? The watershed made pure? I’ll show you just one example of what is happening:  Images were shown.

My take home from this summer is that you will see God reclaiming you personally. I want us all to see that we who come to this church and acknowledge that we have messed up in the eyes of God will know God’s forgiveness, and experience the welcome of God in this church family.   When you come to LAC, I want you to be assured that you don’t have to live any the way you once lived.  I want you to know that God and his people see something in you – his very image -- that can be made beautiful again. I want you to truly believe and experience that broken marriages can be restored, that addictions can be broken, that scars from shame and guilt can be healed.  And that much – perhaps most – of God’s reclaiming work when we do life together in a church family like this one at LAC.  We together are becoming God’s masterpiece to the world revealing God’s love and power and glory.

Oh, I know we as a church are still far from being that beautiful masterpiece that God would have us to be – but I am just as sure that God is here and at work among us.  And I truly believe that the work he has started her will be brought to completion until the day of Jesus Christ.  But how will he do it?  Only God can answer that fully – but let me drive home three points we’ve been making from God’s Word this summer.

#1:  Jesus and Jesus alone must be the Lord of our lives and of the church

            From beginning to end in Philippians, when Paul talks about “life together” as a church, he lets us know that all of us surrendering fully to Jesus is the only thing that can hold a church together.  The first 2 verses talk about Jesus 3 times.  Paul unashamedly declares that for us even to live – as God made us to live – is Christ (1:21).  He says that the deepest longing of a Jesus-follower is to know Christ and to share in his life.  That binds us together.  We are people who together are seeking to know Jesus, to become like Jesus and to lead others to Jesus.  We’re all about Jesus.  We are one in Christ.

            Some people say that the most important value in American church life is self-determination.  In other words, “I want a church that fits my needs and meets my wants.”  I tell you that is not a church “in Christ.”  Self-determination is an anti-Christian value.  Our value is Jesus-determination.  The issue is not what any one of us likes – the issue is what do we do to please Jesus!  What draws us together is that all of us here have come to the point of saying, “I need forgiveness from my sin, cleansing from this guilt I have, release from the shame I experience – and I give my past, present, and future to the Jesus who offers all that to me.  We all have had that “come to Jesus time” and found that he has received us.  So, we mercy-needing people come together thankful to Jesus, loving Jesus and seeking to know Jesus and obey him – and to make him known to the world. It’s that single Jesus-glorifying desire that hold us together.

            We’ve talked about that a lot this summer but let me simply focus on one important part of this that we haven’t talked about enough, i.e., the phrase “in Christ”.  Our lives are hidden in Christ, we rejoice in the Lord and we have the strength to be content in any and every situation when we know the strength that is there when we are in Christ.  The entire New Testament – including Philippians and Philemon – talk about this over and over.  But what on earth does it mean to be “in Christ”?

            Let me explain it this way:  When I went to Chicago as an 18-year-old college student, I went every week to Cabrini Green to teach children the Bible.  Cabrini Green was a renowned Chicago Housing Authority housing project on Chicago’s near north side.  Different from other housing projects, it was located very close to the most affluent parts of Chicago – just blocks from the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park areas.  By the time I went there, it was a tough place.  Just a few blocks away was the greatest wealth of the city but when you crossed over a street you went into the center of gang and drug activity.

            One day, I borrowed a friend’s car to drive there and stayed a bit longer than I should have – so it was dark when I went back to school.  And, there in Cabrini Green I – from Bluefield, WV -- saw my first flashing red light and I wasn’t sure what to do with such a thing.  So, I slowed down and went through it.  Of course, within seconds, one of the Chicago Police Department’s finest was behind me with flashing lights.  One of the officers in the car got out and said, “Did you know you ran through that flashing red light.”  “Well,” I said, “I just moved here from Bluefield, WV and I’ve never seen a flashing red light so I didn’t know I…”  And the officer stopped me in mid sentence.  He said, “Son, you’re not in Bluefield, WV.  You are in Chicago.  And the laws and ways of Chicago rule here.  And, in Chicago, a red light means – you stop!  Furthermore, the moment you crossed that street right over there, you were in Cabrini Green.  And in Cabrini Green, a person who looks like you should never be in this place, at this hour, much less alone.  You are not in Bluefield.  The ways there are not the same as the ways here.  Never forget it.  Let my words guide your life.  You are in Cabrini Green.”

            With the same force – though in eternally positive ways – the Bible declares to us, “You are in Christ.  You are in the sphere of his love.  So, you are never unloved – Jesus loves you with an everlasting love.  You are in the sphere of his grace – Jesus’ life, death and resurrection declare you to be right with God.  You are in the sphere of his care so you need never fear loss or sickness or threats.  He is the one who has defeated death so you can rejoice in the Lord in any situation.  Nothing in this world is greater than he is.  Again I say rejoice in the Lord.  And you and I are in the sphere of his sovereignty.  He is the one though whom heaven and earth were made – so when we enter into a relationship with him, he alone can be God.”

            The entire universe, according to 2:9-11, will someday bow down before Jesus and confess that he is Lord.  But, we who are in Christ already do that.  We are people who together bow before Jesus and confess to the world that he is our Lord.  His ways will not be the same as the ways of the world.  Once we lived for ourselves but now we are in Christ.  That’s what a church is – a group of fallen people who all have bowed down before Jesus and who all confess that he is Lord.  And, when we do we follow his ways and he begins to make something beautiful out of us.

            And, just like that None-Mile-Project in Pittsburg, God takes what was damaged and brings us all together.  He sees not only what we are now but also what we will be through his creative work.  He places us in community together and together we turn from a brownfield into a garden of his glory – from slag to joy.

            I must always start with this point.  I must always start and end with Jesus in my messages or I have no good news to declare to you. And any individual and any church that is in Christ will show the plower and presence of Christ.  How?

#2:  When Jesus is in charge, we will have his attitude toward others.

            The main call to the church in the book of Philippians is found in 2:3-5: Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mind as Christ Jesus...  Jesus sacrificed his time, prestige, comfort and position to come and be with us – to enter into life with us and then to die for us.  He valued our lives as above his own and looked to our interests.

            From 1990-95 I chaired the EFCA Board for International Mission.  It was when our former pastor, Dr, Paul Cedar, was the denomination’s president.  Sometimes, we had big disputes among our missionaries or among our US church leaders.  Often, Dr. Cedar called me into these.  He would send me the correspondence that had gone on among the divided parties – full of verbal poison.  All of it would be incredibly self-centered.  

Dr. Cedar would almost always begin our times with the people by saying something like this, “I’ve read your letters to one another and have heard your accusations about one another and I must tell you – I don’t see much of the spirit of Jesus in any of it.”  Then, he would read these verses from Philippians 2 and we would launch into the hard and often long work of reconciliation.  So, I tell you – I long to see the Spirit of Jesus among us.  I long to have you see it in and through me.

            And I am seeing it here.  Just a few weeks ago, one of you said to me at the end of the service, “Pastor Greg, all my life I have gone to churches focusing on finding certain things that I like and meet my needs.  But God has shown me this summer that’s the wrong focus.  I need to focus not on my own interests but more on the interest of my brothers and sisters.  And you know, I’m finding much more joy in that than in complaining about secondary things.”  That’s the mind of Jesus.  May it grow in each of us.  A church of people really committed to being like Jesus to one another in this way is surely going to become a more and more beautiful place.

#3:  When Jesus is in charge, we will see the effects of his presence and power.

God’s renewing grace – Jesus gave his life to forgive our sins.  Jesus loves us too much to leave us in our sins.  Jesus gives his Spirit to empower us to be set free from our destructive ways and to live life to the full.  So, when a community is “in Christ”, we should be seeing people confessing sins and have others take that confession seriously.  We don’t want any of us to stay where we are but to grow in Christ.  So, we should see people finding forgiveness not only from Jesus but also from his people.  And we should see all of us committed to God’s commitment, i.e., that people will be restored to usefulness.  When Jesus is at work, we will be seeing people who one day are open about confessing failure someday restored to glorifying God.

What we saw in July as we had a formal service of restoration for our brother Duane Funderburk should be a regular part of a church that is “in Christ”.  It shouldn’t happen often in such a public way – as we said in that service – but confession, accountability and restoration should happen in all our smaller groups, classes, and places of service.  Do you see it?  Renewing grace is what Jesus made possible through his death and resurrection.  It’s his work and way.  So, any group that is in Christ should show the effects of his presence and power in that way.

God’s reconciling power – Jesus, came to earth, became human, lived as a servant, and chose to die on a cross bearing the sins of the world in order to bring us to God.  Jesus loves to take things broken from one another and make them right with one another.  So, a community “in Christ” will love that too.  We will rejoice when broken marriages are made new – when people who were mad at each other are out playing golf together and then in bible study together – when once-awkward business meetings are fun…  A church with Jesus in charge will not be at peace until all of are at peace with God and with one another.  That’s why Paul pled with Euodia and Syntyche to be of one mind – and urged a church leader to help them.  That’s why Jesus commanded us to love one another and then prayed that we would be one.  And we have some amazing stories in our church family of God’s reconciling power and I promise that we’ll have some living letters about them in the coming months.  But, today, if you have some broken relationships, I simply want to tell you not to give us.  And let your church family pray with you and be of help to you.

God’s unquenchable joy – Think about it, Philippians is written by a man sitting in a Roman prison with his life in jeopardy, to a church in which some people seem to have come in criticizing him (kicking a man when he’s already down), and to a church in which two of his closest colleagues are fighting with one another and his message again and again is – “rejoice in the Lord always.”  You know the reason – the Maker of the universe is in charge.  He knows what he’s doing.  It may make no sense to us but he promises that he is working all things for the good of those who are his.  So, being in a prison is no joy – not by itself.  Being in a prison “in the Lord’ is still a place we can have joy 

And I see this joy in the Lord among so many in our church family.  A few weeks ago, I went over to David and Jackie Carver’s home because David had been diagnosed with cancer and the doctors were not at all optimistic in his prognosis.  I thought I would try to encourage them.  But, the Carvers were the encouragers.  They are living this message that I am preaching.  The Carvers have walked with the Lord so long and seen his reality so often in his church, that they could hardly fathom that this diagnosis might be something outside of God’s control.  They view all things “in Christ.”  Oh, they love life.  They want health and strength and trust God for each day.  But, whatever happens, they are content.  They are rejoicing because they know that even in this, they are in the realm of Christ’s love and power.

            They know that the Jesus who one day was hanging on the cross bearing the sins of the world (Phil. 2:5-8) is the same Jesus before whom someday every knee will bow and every tongue confess that he is Lord.  The worshipped Lord of the universe is the bearer of the sins of the world.  When we do life together, we learn to live in this world but as citizens of heaven.  We learn together to be content when the world is anxious.  We learn to have joy in times of abundance and in times in which we must trust God for each day’s bread.  We learn together what it means to be “in Christ.”

            So the take-home?  For some of you, I want this to be a “come to Jesus” Sunday.  It’s time for you to come to Jesus and begin to live.  It’s the day for you to confess your sins and ask for his forgiveness and then to tell him that you give your life to him.  It’s time for you to be “in Christ” rather than to live for yourself.

            And to the rest, I want you to make a deeper commitment to our life together in this family than you have made.  We need to meet together to sing praise with one voice to God – to hear our Father’s Word together – and to serve together to let others know about new life in Christ.  So, I’m so glad you’re here today.  But you also need to be praying for us and need us to pray for you.  We need to learn from one another – laugh with one another – serve Christ with one another.  We’ll help you connect as we can.  We have a new “Pathways” group beginning today!  Pathways is our way of saying, “We won’t just give you a sheet of paper telling you how you can fit in – we’ll find people to walk with you.

            Jesus did not build his church so we could sit, listen and leave – but so that we could do life together.  He wants to take all the life forms in a group like this – where once we were a brownfield slag – and make us into a work of art.  And he will do it.  But you must be a part of a family that truly and in every sense of the words is “one in Christ.”

The Keys:

*For me to live is Christ (1:21).

*Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mind as Christ Jesus... (2:3-5).